Nightingales and Rainstorms
by Nenalata
Summary: They said he was crazy, and maybe they were right. All he knew was that nature spoke to him, and he always responded.


His first teacher had always said that nature seemed to speak to him, but she didn't mean it in a good way. And it was true: Mikhail heard music everywhere, every time the sun shone and the wind blew.

Speaking to him. Telling him what to play.

If he wanted to admit it-which he didn't-he would realize that such thoughts, such voices were dangerous. What if one day, during a storm, the raging tempest sang to him of death and murder and destruction of life?

That thunderstorm struck. His violin screamed along with the howling winds, and his bow scraped across the strings every time his room shook.

It was just music. It was harmless in the way books are.

It was just music, just art, just his soul and mind, but banned books are banned for reasons.

Controversies exist because disasters have happened in the past.

He didn't tell anyone that nature spoke to him. He didn't say that when trees whispered in the breeze he could understand the words, or that when snow fell he could hear each snowflake laughing as it melted and died.

Instead, he left home and his teacher and played the rain showers like the great musician Tansen.

It wasn't just music. It was truth. His songs were the embodiment of nature, and all who heard him play wept or shivered in terror and awe. Prodigy, they called him, but he felt as if the only gift he had was to hear the words of the Goddess, a gift the others seemed to lack.

He confided in his first serious girlfriend his true muse, and she told him to see a psychiatrist. He told the good doctor the same that he had told her: that he felt as though nature spoke to him and all he did was play its words for others to understand.

The doctor told him he was schizophrenic and prescribed him a bottle of hateful pills. Mikhail tried them for a while to please his girlfriend, but they stifled his inspiration and muted his playing. His reputation suffered, and his girlfriend left him for the new concert master, the man who had taken Mikhail's title.

He stopped taking the medicine and composed a concerto of reunion rather than heartbreak.

With the money starting to trickle back into his wallet and no gold-digging girlfriend to tie him down, he left again.

Konohana was nestled in the shadow of a glorious mountain filled with flora, animals and ever-changing weather. Upon his arrival, Mikhail was struck with countless voices begging to be put to treble clef, and he stood at the village gates for a long time, violin case lying almost forgotten next to him, as he took all the music in.

He composed a symphony that very night in his hotel room, and when he paused and emerged for dinner after spending the day practicing, he saw Ina wiping away tears at the front desk.

He became a recluse of sorts-though he often left the practice room his hotel room had become, it was only to wander alone along the mountain, spending hours listening to nature's many words. He had learned as a child that speaking back in ways other than music was frowned upon, but he settled the voices in his head by keeping the notes the wind sang in his mind to be transcribed upon his return.

He ran into Lillian occasionally on these excursions as she foraged for flowers and fruit along the mountain path, and though he sometimes had trouble hearing her voice over the clamor of animal growls and cloud laughter in his head, her dulcet tones occasionally soothed the tumult enough for him to write brief lullabies about her, rather than the masterpieces of music he often wrote to respond to the sunshine.

It was only one day, after finishing a solo with no harmony to complement it, that Mikhail realised that, despite the voices in his head, he was lonely. The rain pouring outside shrieked demands in his head, but for once Mikhail did not wish to respond.

He tried to force out the lightning's voice and focused instead on playing a piece about nightingale calls and freshly harvested soybeans and well cared-for sheep. His struggles produced a violent medley of clashing chords and key changes. The nightingales and crops suddenly began to triumph over the storm, and he laughed even as he played until he realised Lillian was standing right next to him, asking if he was all right.

That evening, as her sweaty body curled lovingly around his in her sleep, Mikhail heard nothing but the gentle night breeze whispering major key waltzes in his head. He pressed his lips to her sleeping brow, and the ensuing spark that he felt spoke to him of harmonies and love, so much love that nature itself could ask him to play it.

When she awoke, he played her his new song in her honor, and the sunshine streaming in through the window sang that he had done no harm.

_Check me out! I wrote something happy! I wrote this at 4 AM, so my opinion of this is a little skewed. Reviews with both pros and cons about this would therefore be much appreciated. Reviews in general are always appreciated. Thanks for reading!_

_EDITED for readability's sake.  
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